The Other Guy’s Drone

The New York Times reported this week that a worrisome security risk has arisen for the French government in the form of a series of small, non-military unmanned aerial vehicles (also known as “drones”) that have periodically taken flight this past month over a dozen nuclear facilities throughout France.

Security officials are investigating a mysterious wave of drone flights that have buzzed illegally over more than a dozen nuclear plants across France, raising security concerns around the country’s primary energy source.

Between Oct. 5 and Nov. 2, guards at 13 nuclear plants, many of which are operated by the French electricity giant EDF, spotted several drones flying over the sites, including in Le Blayais, in southwestern France, and Gravelines in the north.

A French government official said the drones were small and civilian or commercial, not military drones. “Our main concern is that the drones will take photos and video footage of the plants,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss security issues.

“One of our security concerns is to avoid having any precise images’ being taken of the nuclear plant,” the official added.

Authorities on this side of the Atlantic are also indicating stepped-up concern about drones in the wrong hands. According to recent reporting, the New York Police Department is devising a strategy to address the risk of terrorists using these platforms to launch an attack.

For the last year, the country’s largest police force has been increasingly concerned about a potential terror attack from the air by a drone armed with a deadly weapon.

Now, they are far along in planning a response to that possible security threat, reports CBS News correspondent Jeff Pegues.

“We look at it as something that could be a terrorist’s tool,” New York Police Department Deputy Chief Salvatore DiPace said.

For the first time, he is publicly acknowledging why the NYPD is paying close attention to America’s fascination with drones and the potential that they could deliver a terrorist attack.

He’s worried that the technology has advanced enough for someone to carry out an air assault using chemical weapons and firearms.

“We’ve seen some video where the drone was flying at different targets along the route and very accurately hitting the targets with the paintball,” he said.

But the NYPD sees a drone carrying explosives as the number one threat. And one video in particular was a wake-up call.

Last year in Germany, a drone was hovering over a crowd of people just as German Chancellor Angela Merkel delivered a speech.

It flew toward the podium and landed right in front of her.

She was smiling, but law enforcement across the globe was not.

Two observations:

1. The security risks are real when it comes to the potential for terrorists to assemble small, unsophisticated UAVs for use against critical infrastructure or soft civilian targets. Law enforcement here and abroad is right to be thinking about the potential vulnerabilities of such targets to drones in the wrong hands.However, policy-makers at both the federal and state levels need to be careful not to take the wrong message from these developments and unduly hold back the good guys from deploying these platforms in American skies. In the right hands, drones can be an important tool for law enforcement, and its partners in the private sector, for preventing and responding to terrorist attacks on domestic soil. From protecting critical and disbursed infrastructure, to tracking the spread of lethal viruses, to managing first responders in the aftermath of an attack, the benefits of this technology for homeland security remain considerable.
2. The military has been working on various counter-unmanned systems (CUAS) technologies for some time with respect to adversary UAVs that our armed services will likely face over distant waters and foreign lands in the not-too-distant future – but this is not solely an issue for the military. As the NYPD and other domestic law enforcement agencies contemplate guarding against terrorists using drones here, identifying technological solutions to this threat ought to be one of the highest priorities that make up these emerging homeland defense strategies as well.